Taking Keys Doesn’t Cut It This Graduation Season

If you have a child who is graduating from high school soon do your best to not let the celebrations ruin their next chapter. Young people want to shout to the world that they are done with high school and are moving on to college or at least closer to being on their own. But sometimes the celebrations they want to have can bite them in the butt.

There’s that trip down the ocean. Of course kids make plans for alcohol and other crazy stuff. If you’re letting them go all I can say is preach and tell them that getting caught drinking can put their college start on hold.

And sorry to say it, sometimes you just can’t trust the parents you have come to know over the last four years. I’ve had a parent tell me how they were dead set against underage drinking, and drinking and driving, only to later find out they were contributing to it by supplying alcohol so the teens would not get caught buying it. When my children were in the celebration mode there were all kinds of parties. There were parties where parents provided beer and wine and I don’t know what else. They opened their houses and allowed kids to spend the night. But of course everyone had to turn their keys in to the parents in charge. That’s just not cool.

My daughter Paige tried to convince me to allow her to have one of those parties pleading with me that if I had everyone give up their keys it would be alright. I flat out said “NO”. She told me I was a paranoid reporter. Well I have seen a lot of things. And the what ifs have a way of taking over my mind. Because as we all know it takes one bad move to cause so many problems. I would not be able to make sure no one snuck off. Maybe they had another set of keys. I felt it my responsibility to make sure that kids at my house were taken care of and safe—I would think that’s what other parents would expect of me. And I of them. Also, it’s illegal and you could get into some serious trouble, especially if someone got sick.

Our kids don’t tell us everything and it is awful hard to keep track of what they are really doing in the age of cell phones. Now, mine try to tell what they were up to. I tell them I don’t want to know if it was something they shouldn’t have been doing. I know they were not angels.

I just want to remind parents that this is serious. Helping teens “party” with alcohol is a bad idea. Encourage your kids to come clean if they know one of these parties is going on and to call you if they go to a party that is out of hand and they don’t feel comfortable. You might be saying your kids are too young and you don’t have to worry about it. Yes you do. You should talk about it early and as often as the opportunity comes up. So when those moments come, you are sitting right there on your child’s shoulder whispering in their ear so they think twice.

Being the bad guy is okay if you are the ultimate save guy. You do want to see them take another walk across the stage a few years from now, don’t you.